Rico Love Says He Helped Boost Kelly Rowland's, Usher's Confidence

Rico Love compares himself to a "Musical Tony Robbins," says underground artists can at times be "cowards."

On top of penning songs, which include Usher’s “There Goes My Baby” and Melanie Fiona’s “4 AM,” according to Rico Love, he’s also a worthy motivational speaker. When asked about helping songstress Kelly Rowland sing about sex with confidence during an interview with The Fader, Rico spoke on his gift for encouraging and motivating others.

The singer-songwriter even went on to refer to himself as a “musical Tony Robbins” as he spoke on the words of encouragement he provided for Rowland, Atlanta crooner Usher, and other artists.

“I think I’m like the musical Tony Robbins,” Rico revealed. “I give those speeches in the recording sessions. When Usher was coming off the Here I Stand album and people were kind of counting him out, I was in the studio telling him he was the greatest singer of all time: ‘Are you kidding me? Do you understand? Do you know who you are? You’re Usher.’ Same thing with Kelly: ‘You were part of Destiny’s Child, that means a lot. That’s not regular.’”

As an artist who’s been behind the scenes for quite some time, it was only recently that Rico Love put his own music in the spotlight with the release of his Discrete Luxury EP. The producer says it was with the release of songs like Trey Songz’ “Mr. Wrong,” which he wrote, that he finally came to the realization that his desire was to focus on writing his own music.

Rico love later gave kudos to rapper Kanye West as he addressed the cowardice he feels “underground artists” exhibit when it comes to receiving criticism from others.

“‘Heart Attack’ for Trey Songz, ‘Mr. Wrong’ for Mary J. Blige and ‘4 AM’ for Melanie Fiona. I started realizing that all of those songs were really about me,” he said. “I was Mr. Wrong, I was the guy in ‘4 AM.’ I started feeling like nobody else can say this, nobody else can spit this, nobody else can sing this. No matter how much work you put in, how much success you’ve had as a writer, if people can’t put a face to the music, their respect is not really there… Kanye said some real shit, that a lot of the underground artists are the most talented people in the world but they’re cowards. They’re afraid or people telling them that their shit is not good.”

As a singer, songwriter, and producer, Rico Love boasts quite the extensive musical resume and has worked with Diddy, Chris Brown, Fergie, and countless other artists. His first solo EP, Discrete Luxury, was released today (August 27) and includes a lone guest appearance from Tiara Thomas.